A Diary and Journal from the Second Grinnell Expedition

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in order that Petersen might have a chance of following rabbit tracks up Mary River he succeeded in shooting one large male and a couple of Ptarmagan, thus giving our sick a good allowance for one day more. Bonsall and Kane for John now has utterly given in toiled all day, and when the work was over read ten o'clock. Bonsall snores and Kane keeps his usual vigil. Petersen who as hunter gets his hot dish of the spoils has been snoring this four hours.

Hans has not come. Mr. Brooks reported to day a threat, by William Godfrey the Deserter, upon my life, two witnesses sustaining it: I have no time nor inclination to detail it here.

Sick improving in the Old Cases, worse in the more recent. A strange condition of skin evidently connected with scurvy has prevailed more or less for the last three weeks. It consists of an erythematous irruption not unlike urticaria, breaking out and receeding, frequently during the twenty four hours. It is intolerable in its itching and sometimes accompanied by hive-like symptoms, whelk like elevations and excessive depression and nausea. Often the skin, except the follicular elevations of cutis anserina, presents no eruptive appearance. Now am I able to analyse the primary form. A few papules have been detected upon the softer expansions of perineum & axilla and in three out of ten cases true herpes on the penis. I suffer among the rest and am at no loss to connect the condition with certain symptoms of scurvy, which I need not here mention

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to handle a gun. The sick no longer react but still hold their own. This is a grave crisis in our affairs. God grant that I may keep upon my legs - a little longer - To night I have a fever, very slight however, such as I can readily conceal.

Wednes Mar. 28

I hope my own bad symptoms may be due to a cold or to overwork, for Bonsall must lay up tomorrow and the out door duties will fall entirely upon me.

The sick although no longer actively improving, hold their own. Not one is as yet able to leave his bed save for a crawl out to sun at the main hatch but should Hans arrive I am certain that McGeary Brooks & Ohlsen would soon so full up with fresh walrus as to remove this cruel crisis. If I could see the daily wheels move on without me I might take at once to bed and treatment as a means of restoring myself to useful duty. As it is I am obliged to hold on hoping against hope that Hans has resisted the vilain and will momentarily return.

Thurs. Mar. 29

No Hans. Obliged to detain poor Petersen to cut wood therefore - no [bids?] - Morton worse and Goodfellow the same. Riley and McGeary I look to with hope.

Commenced cutting sail of brig. Nearly all our bulk head [wood?] gone, only retain enough to defend us from the cold. Have had a hard day's work. Night gorgeous moon in her third quarter Stars of [Is?] Mag. visible to S.W. Therm -46°. Glad of the cold for it will render more certain the approaching [change?]

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taken down. Hans is nearly given up, he has already overstaid his orders by two days, this to a boy with so strict a regard for my authority could [hardly?] take place except by some extraordinary detention.

[*Log.*] I here formally record the deserter of William Godfrey seaman, under circumstances calculated to entail peculiar misery upon his late companions Mr. Grinnell [?], therefore, upon the authority of this record consider himself as relieved from all pecuniary dues to the said Godfrey. The various thefts, misdemeanours, and other culpable acts of William Godfrey may be found in the Log book, antecedent to Sept: 1854, and during the months Dec. and Jany. 1854-55. After which no Log entries have been made. [end Log]

K

March

This month badly as its daily record reads is upon review a cheering one. We have managed by hook and by crook to get enough game to revive the worst of our scurvy patients and at the same time kept in regular movement the domistic wheels of shipboard.

During this month our troubles have been greatest perhaps I ought to say are at this moment greatest, but whatever misery Bonsall and Petersen and self may have endured it seems nearly certain that at least four men will soon be able to relieve us. The names of these are McGeary Brooks, Riley and Thomas, all of whom have during this month seen the crisis of their malady and if secured from relapse will recover. Ohlsen is also better but slow to regain his powers.

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The rest of the crew continue down. [Among them Goodfellow and Wilson are the most ill perhaps because the least amenable to treatment, the former of these poor Goodfellow is nothing more nor less than an absolute nuissance.]

The game season is nearer at hand and once able to shoot seal upon the ice, I have little fears for the recovery of a larger portion of our party. Perhaps I am too sanguine for it is now clear that we three, who have so long sustained the rest, are sinking. We cannot hold on long Bonsall can barely walk in the morning and his legs become stiffer daily. Petersen gives way at the ankles, and I suffer much from the eruption, a tormenting and anomalous symptom which affects eight of our sick. It has many of the characteristics of Exanthemata but in singular persistent varied in its phases and may prove dangerous. All the work inboard and outside is performed by Bonsall and myself. The moral value of this toilsome month is that it has taught me sympathy with the labouring man. The fatigue and disgust and secret trials of the overworked brain are God knows bad enough, but not to me more severe than those which follow the sick and jaded body to a sleepless bed. [Disease will always exist in communities, as well with the body laboured as the mind laboured. I can now understand the feelings of a man gaining his bread by the sweat of his brow, and seeing ahead the day when] I have realized what is meant by the sweat of the brow, and can feel how painful must [be?] do earnings to him to whom the grass hopper has [shall] become a [brethren?].

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There is little of incident or adventure to break in upon the disconforts of March. Our routine was unbroken and cheerless. Hans brought us the walrus meat which saved us from almost immediate helplessness on the 10th and brought with him Myosu, as an aid to future hunts. Of these [two?] were made upon the floes without success, and several equally unfortunate have been undertaken upon the plains in search of Reindeer. An attempt to surround these animals made by Bonsall Petersen and myself, failed and could not be repeated owing to poor Bonsalls increasing scurvy.

The one matter for record and thought is an attempted meeting which under circumstances of peculiar delicacy was frustrated after ten days of nearly constant vigil. This is noted in the acts of the day. John and Godfrey are entirely depraved, but their object was forcible theft of sledge and dogs with desertion rather than attack. After much careful scrutiny I am convinced that their design was confined to them alone.

William Godfreys desertion followed immediately after the discovery and punishment of his scheme, he has without a doubt taken the sledge, and deluding Hans by some well coined lie travelled to the south. The influence of this loss, whether sledge dogs or my faithful hunter Hans, will be critical upon our present health and future escape.

The sun has gone through some pleasant phases giving variety to our dreary landscape and relieving the